The current state of optical connectors for both the passive and active markets are expensive to manufacture due to the design of molded components not allowing for automation and relying solely on manual labor intensive processes to assemble. These components require an operator to manually assemble multi-fiber configurations into tightly controlled precision fiber bore diameters in the realm of a few hundred microns and below. This current fiber termination process is extremely difficult to design for automation which results in high manufacturing costs of the connector assembly.
It would, therefore, be beneficial to provide an automatable precision compatible fiber gripper that can be utilized as a precision molded assembly for these precision optical connector components, thereby significantly reducing the applied costs in the manufacturing process. It would also be beneficial to provide such a fiber gripper without sacrificing tight tolerances which enable part functionality.